The health field is replete with devices intended to help resolve or prevent respiratory problems. Therapies that assist persons in taking deep breaths have been found to be beneficial in that this may expand airways. Among these therapies are continuous positive airway pressure therapy, and aerosol therapy.
Continuous positive airway pressure therapy, or “CPAP,” is often used for the treatment and prevention of atelectasis, which is the closing of part or the entire lung. Atelectasis is usually due to blockage in the airway and is exacerbated by very shallow breathing. CPAP is often used in hospitals on post surgical patients and patients who are confined to bed because they are particularly vulnerable to this condition. CPAP, which is also used to treat sleep apnea, delivers a positive pressure into the airways during both inhalation and exhalation in order to help open the airways and keep them open. It has been found to help in not only the reversal of atelectasis, but in its prevention as well. CPAP therapy may be delivered by connecting a single-patient CPAP device to a source of gas, such as a flow meter that regulates the flow of air or oxygen from a wall outlet. CPAP therapy is most often delivered to the patient through a mouthpiece or mask.
Another lung therapy that is commonly used to prevent or resolve atelectasis is aerosol therapy. This therapy is typically delivered by placing a liquid medication, such as a bronchodilator, into a small-volume nebulizer, connecting the nebulizer to a source of gas, most often regulated by a flow meter that regulates the flow of air or oxygen. The nebulizer converts the liquid medication into aerosol and, like CPAP therapy, is usually delivered to the patient through a mouthpiece or mask.
It has been found that the combination and concurrent delivery of CPAP and aerosol therapies is beneficial in that it reduces treatment time, and it is believed that each therapy enhances the effectiveness of the other. The aerosol delivery of a fast-acting bronchodilator may help to dilate airways allowing the CPAP pressure being introduced to have the maximum opportunity to be effective. Likewise, as the CPAP holds the airways open the aerosol has free access to the airways to do its job. This combination therapy may be administered by connecting a single-patient CPAP device to one source of gas controlled by a flow meter, connecting a nebulizer to the CPAP device, and connecting the nebulizer to another source of gas controlled by a flow meter.
Although this combination therapy is effective, potential problems may arise by having to connect each of the two therapy devices to separate gas sources. For example, there is often only one gas source available in a hospital room. In this case, a concurrent combination therapy would be precluded, or require the gathering of an additional portable gas source, such as a gas tank or portable compressor. If two gas sources are available in a room, an additional flow meter is required so that the nebulizer and the CPAP device can each be connected to its own gas source. Additionally, if there are two gas sources in a room, usually one is oxygen and the other air. This forces the clinician to connect one of the devices to air and the other to oxygen. In certain situations it may be advantageous to connect both the CPAP device and the nebulizer to the same type of gas. For example, in treating a patient in the end-stages of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, it may be desirable to deliver the combination therapy using only air in order to avoid oxygen-flow induced retention of carbon dioxide. Similarly, when treating a patient with a condition that requires higher concentrations of oxygen it may be more beneficial to connect both the CPAP and the aerosol device to an oxygen source.
Thus, it would be desirable to have a single-patient, CPAP therapy device that can be connected to a nebulizer in order to deliver aerosol therapy under continuous positive pressure while requiring only a single gas source for the two devices or combination.
The present invention provides for such a combination therapy and connects to a single gas source.